The Wolf's Howl
by IvoryTroll
Summary: Fenir Greyback pays a visit to the Lupin's household...He's got a favour to repay.


_Written as a challenge from vampiregirl50: I'm holding a competition to write a story about how Remus Lupin became a werewolf. It can be however long you want but must be given in on Midnight June 21st BST_

The wind howled in a manner eerily similar to a wolf's cry at midnight around the Lupin household. A young boy tossed and turned in his bed as the full moon shone on him through a crack in the curtains. The louder the howling became, the more he kicked and wriggled until he suddenly opened his eyes, gasping and crying from a nightmare. He gazed fearfully around his small room, certain it was just a nightmare while at one and the same moment absolutely certain it was true. In his dream the howling wasn't the wind, it was a wolf. But not any wolf. It was a werewolf.

He tried to settle down again, tried to pretend it was a dream while growing more sure by the second that it was true. He screamed with fear when the howling sounded again, sobbing fearfully into the pillow and rousing his parents in the next room.

They rushed in, thinking their boy had been murdered, only to find him cowering on his bed. His mother rushed over to comfort him, placing a lit lamp on the bedside table.

"Shh little darling. It's just a storm howling out there." she said comfortingly, giving a little gentle laugh as she said it.

"No! It's a wolf an' it's going to bite me..." whispered the boy fearfully, glancing toward the window and back.

His parents glanced towards each other for a second before smiling.

"Don't be silly sweetheart!" said his mother kindly, "It's only the wind, I promise."

The boy glared at her for a second before standing up.

"It is SO a wolf! An' I'm gonna prove it." he said emphatically as he started to walk out of the room, turning back when his parents didn't follow him, "Come on! We're going outside, I'm gonna prove it's a wolf!"

His parents looked at each other again and shrugged. After all, as it was just the wind, going outside wouldn't do any harm would it?

The trio walked downstairs and to the door where the boy's dad had to open it because he was too small to open the door. The boy walked out into the calm night. Now his parents looked worried. If it was just the wind, how come there was no wind now but the howling continued?

A shadow moved across the lawn, startling the family. The parents were still in the house but the little boy was in the middle of the garden. He pointed to the monstrous shadow and turned back to his parents.

"See? It is a... Wolf..." His voice faded as he realised he was right and what this meant. The house, once so close to him, now seemed miles away, his parents' shouts fading to nothing as he turned back to the werewolf, too scared to even think about moving. At first he made no sound but as the beast started moving, bending it's hind legs into a crouch, he screamed the piercing scream of a child with no more childhood ahead of it. The wolf lunged to his neck and Remus Lupin collapsed under the weight of the huge, scar-ridden werewolf. He closed his eyes as the teeth came towards his neck; huge, sharp, yellowing fangs that stank of blood and meat. Closing his eyes didn't stop it happening though and he screamed again as the pain, awful, unbearable pain, began, taking over his body until all he knew was the pain, turning his body to fire.  
He passed out, unable to cope as Fenrir Greyback turned him from a young innocent boy into a wolf.

The sun shone on his unconscious body. Fenrir was long gone, his work completed. Remus was a werewolf now, covered in blood from the parts of his body he had gouged out with his new claws, bones broken and reset into odd positions from his first transformation, and the retribution for the insult was done.

Remus roused, painfully, from his slumber, with memories of a wolf and screaming and above all pain. He knew what he was. He knew it with the same certainty as he had known it was not the wind.

He was a werewolf.


End file.
